


Snipe Hunt

by erintoknow



Series: Fallen Hero Sidestep AU Fanfics [3]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: Farce, Gen, Heist, POV Female Character, POV Second Person, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, extra canonical, multi-sidestep action, personality conflicts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 06:04:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19882825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erintoknow/pseuds/erintoknow
Summary: There’s the rising roar of a motorcycle before you pick up the probing presence of her mind. It’s a quick pull to bring your mask back down over your face as Anima comes to a stop in front of you.“I didn’t know you owned a motorcycle?” You ask through the buzz of your voice modulator.Anima leans the bike to the side as she brings the kickstand down. “I don’t.” She answers, her voice similarly distorted.She offers no further explanation.





	Snipe Hunt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kinpika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinpika/gifts).



> Logan Walsh belongs to [kinpika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinpika)

You stand in the dark, just outside the circle of light from the streetlamp, propped up against the brick wall of the now closed bakery, a brown paper bag between your hands. Reckon it had been over an hour now, drum your fingers against the contents of the bag. Under your shawl, you’re dressed in your old black skinsuit. Well, old with a few improvements. Being Adrestia outside of your armor feels unnatural, you’ve tried to keep things compartmentalized that way since you started your career. This case will have to be an exception however. Subterfuge is the name of the game and you’ll need every advantage you can get. Thinking of which…

There’s the rising roar of a motorcycle before you pick up the probing presence of her mind. It’s a quick pull to bring your mask back down over your face as Anima comes to a stop in front of you.

“I didn’t know you owned a motorcycle?” You ask through the buzz of your voice modulator.

Anima leans the bike to the side as she brings the kickstand down. “I don’t.” She answers, her voice similarly distorted.

She offers no further explanation.

“…We good to go, Anima?”

She nods. “They boys are ready to jump when I give the order.” She taps the radio clipped to her belt. Anima’s track record is hard to argue with, though it was the network that she brought into play that had convinced you to consider working with her. Like, you tonight, Anima is forgoing her proper villain attire in favor of a black skinsuit and mask.

…You have to admit she wears it a lot better than you do.

She stretches her arms and leans back, as if to prove the point. It’s been a long time since you’ve worked with another telepath, you’re going to have to watch your thinking around her.

You cough and pull a cape out the paper bag you’ve been holding. Like your shawl it’s a long rectangular cut of fabric with a strange silky texture. You toss it to her, and she catches it in one hand. “Thermal reflective,” you offer as an explanation. 

She drapes it around her shoulders, fastening it in place.“You saying I’m too hot, Elvis?”

“F-for infiltration!” You sputter. “And it’s _Adrestia_.”

“Right. You’re the boss, Adriana.”

You grit your teeth, take a breath. Stay focused. It’s time to be Adrestia now.

It’s not a long walk, from here to your target, and sticking to the shadows is old hat by now. Even so, ’dark of night’ doesn’t mean much when the perimeter of the Los Diablos City Archive is a moat of light. It’s hardly the Ark of the Covenant in there. Who would want to steal a bunch of musty old government records?

Well… who beside you and Anima anyway.

A quick scan of the area for prying minds and then the two of you dash across open space to the side door. Anima hunches down to pick the lock while you keep watch.

“Hey,” Anima doesn’t look up from the door as she works. “Can you tone down the concert, Adele?”

You glance down at her, taken aback. “Excuse me?”

Anima taps the side of her head. “Hard to focus when you’re blasting the 80s up here.”

“You have your own mental shield, right? That’s mine.” Still, you try to scale back a little, let more of the world in. You should have already been doing that, be ready to pick up any errant presence on it’s way.

“Yeah… That sounds fake as shit, but whatever.”

You frown under your mask at that. You’re Adrestia. You’re supposed to be assertive, confident, you shouldn't’t have to just take this, this is _your_ operation. “Maybe try actually using yours for a change, Anima.” 

Anima tsks only half listening as she stands back up and kicks the door right on the lock causing it to swing in with slam. “Door’s open.” 

“A master locksmith.” You mutter as you follow her in.

The lights are low, but visibility is still fine. The building just has that spooky after hours feeling, like there might be ghosts hiding around a corner. Good, spooky atmosphere should make your jobs easier.

You feel the question coming from Anima before she vocalizes it, “So who’s taking what?”

You close your eyes, run over the mental map in your head. Imagine the path as a thread, split in two, running through the building. “Take that third door.” You point down the left of the hallway. “Follow the signs to the backup generator and the switchboard. Then meet back up with me…” You drag your arm through the air, pointing through a wall to where you know the stairwell down is located on the other end of the building, “there. I’ll be waiting there as soon as I clear out the security office.”

Anima nods, “Race you there.”

“It’s not a–“ she’s already half way down the hallway, “–race.”

Welp.

You’re not about to let her beat you.

Turning right you follow the path you’ve already plotted, pausing only to let a tired security guard pass through an intersection. Check in on his thoughts, only to find nothing out of the ordinary. That’s reassuring. You were worried that Anima’s ‘lockpicking’ might have scrubbed the mission before it could even start. Turns out it’s hard to go broke betting against the city government.

When you reach the security office you detect only one person inside, a woman, more focused on their book than the array of TV screens. It doesn’t take much to reach out, encourage her to feel the weight pulling on her eyelids. The assurance that everything’s going to be fine, nothing ever happens here anyway. It’s an easy job. Who can blame her? She deserves a rest.

When you actually step inside, she’s already deep asleep. You gently wheel her chair back away from the desk and scan the control panel. The passwords are listed on a sticky note hanging from the side of the monitor.

Only the best for this city.

You set the tapes to wipe and reset every half hour instead of every forty-eight, then move on to the security system, disabling the motion sensors and alarms. Job finished you step back and clap your hands together. That went far more smoothly than you had expected. You wheel the guard woman back to her spot at the desk to complete the picture. Finally, you reset the passwords to random gibberish. Hope guard-lady enjoys the nap, it’s likely to be her last on the job.

You’re stepping back into the hallway when the lights flicker and go out. Anima’s finished with the power then. With only the emergency batteries most, if not all, of the doors in your way will have automatically unlocked for safety purposes. And if your enemy is going to just ‘leave’ the door open, it’d be downright rude not to walk in and take a look around, wouldn’t it?

Now the timer starts. How long before someone puts things together and raises an alarm? Long enough you hope. You turn on the night vision in your mask, tinging the black around you into a green haze. Someone’s bound to come running to the security room when what’s-her-name doesn’t check in.

Time to get going and make your way through the building to the rendezvous point.

Anima’s already waiting for you when you reach the stairwell. Mercifully there’s no comments about winning the ‘race.’ You have to admit, part of you is surprised she actually waited.

“Don’t be so shocked, Ariana,” Anima holds a door open for you, gesturing you in with an elaborate flourish. “I need you in order to get the archive after all.”

Right. That made more sense. She wanted those files as badly as you did. It’s the main reason you’re taking the risk of trusting her. What _is_ the official report on the Heartbreak incident? The one that even the Rangers can’t access? Hopefully tonight you’ll get some answers. 

You push open the other door instead of the one Anima’s holding. The huff of frustration behind your back earning a small smirk under your mask. “Com’on, sweet tea, we’re against the clock now.”

She falls in alongside you as you double-time down the stairs. “’Sweet tea?’ What are you, a southern belle now?”

“ _Bless your heart_.” You reply with the appropriate level of mock sincerity as the two of you reach the bottom of the stairwell.

You take position to one side of the double doors to the basement floor and Anima follows suit across from you. Try to relax, spread out the song in your head and feel for what other tones get caught in the mesh. You can get a sense of Anima doing something similar; a smooth, silvery sensation that splits into fractals before rejoining itself. It’s a little unnerving. Sensation of bad memories.

But the past can’t hurt you, and there’s no one else on this floor who could try either. “Detect anything?” You ask.

“Nope, they’re all running around upstairs.” Anima confirms.

“Works for me,” you push the door open and power walk down the hallway. The server room is at the far end of the basement. No need to drag this out. You can follow the path you already memorized straight there. The two of you manage to pass a whole minute in blessed, if anxious, silence when Anima starts trailing behind you.

“Hey… hey, Adele!”

You keep moving. You may need her support to pull this off, but you’re not going to let her get under your skin the whole time.

“Hey, Avril Lavigne, hold up.”

You’re not falling for it.

“Fucking… Amy Winehouse girl, hey!”

You turn the corner and walk face first into someone’s chest. “Fuck!” You jump back, falling into a defensive stance. The man you’ve just run into similarly steps back, tensing up. Why didn’t you pick up on him? You strain for the man in front of you. Now that you know he’s here you can pick up the faint hum of static. An epileptic? “ _Fuck_.”

“What the hell?” The man is dressed in a crisp white skinsuit and grips a black baton in one hand.

“I was fucking trying to warn you.” Anima hisses as she catches up.

The man glances from you to her and takes a step backward, one hand reaching for his radio. You move forward, aiming for his arm, only to crash into Anima as she goes for his leg. The two of you topple to the ground in a furiously cursing mess of limbs.

The man in the white skinsuit yells into his radio. “We’ve got two intruders on the basement floor! I need back up!”

You scramble to your feet, elbow stinging from where you hit the ground. “Goddamnit.”

“Maybe listen to me next time.” Anima cracks her knuckles as she gets up.

You’re still closer, so the man goes for you first, aiming to bring the baton down on your head. You jump backwards, and fake losing your balance to get him to press his advantage. Like a sap, he takes the bait and Anima uses the opening to kick out the back of his knee. 

The man cries out as he collapses forward and you greet him with a punch in the face, reversing his momentum, this time with a broken nose. Anima neatly sidesteps, letting him crash onto the cement floor with a meaty thud. “I call dibs on the next guy.”

You hiss as you shake your hand, it’s been awhile since you’ve punched someone outside of your suit. “So much for stealth.” You frown, and peer down at the prone form. “He had a skinsuit. Was that a boosted guard? I wonder what his power was?”

“Don’t care. Do we still have time?” Anima asks, stepping around the unconscious man. 

You pull yourself away, run over the plan in your head again. “I have no idea. If they’re all that easy, maybe?”

“Good enough for me.”

“Here’s hoping.” 

It’s not a long run at this point, and just as hoped, the electronic lock offers no trouble as you swing the door open. “Keep watch?”

Anima shrugs, “Fine. Don’t get lost in there Adelaide.” 

You spit another curse as you enter the server room.

“What? What’s the problem now?” Anima stands in the doorframe, watching the hallway. You can pick up that silvery fractal sensation now and again, like a pulse. 

You gesture at the racks of hardware, stomping your foot. “There’s no power!”

“Uh… yeah, that was the point, wasn’t it?”

“There’s supposed to be a tertiary power supply just to keep the servers running. It’s on every damn schematic and report I could find.”

“Wow.” Anima’s voice is flat. “Someone lied. That’s never happened before.”

“Oh…” You try to think of a curse word strong enough, fail. “Shush up.”

Anima laughs, a hand over her mouth. “'Shush up?’”

“I need to think.” You pace the room. It’s more a narrow hallway with rows of servers on racks. Run your gloved hand across the dusty plastic cases. Which server hard drive has the file? Could you just… take the whole thing?

“Why _can’t_ you just take the whole computer?” Anima asks, still leaning in the doorframe, arms crossed.

You jump. Has she been listening to you think the whole time?

“No, just now.”

You glare at her. Not that she can see it under the mask or the gloom, but you make sure she knows you’re _thinking_ it. “It’s not like a physical file, there’s no… ‘H for Heartbreak’ server.” You grab at a random server, pulling it against the attached cables. “It’s not going to be that easy.”

“What’s it say on the side of that one?”

You sigh. “You know what, I’m not even going to look.” You hold up a hand at her. “I’m not giving you the satisfaction.” You pop the server free of its cabling. “Sense anyone coming yet?”

“There’s some action upstairs, they’re waiting for backup.”

“Can you still reach your people from down here?”

Anima raps the radio hanging from her waist. “Yeah.” You sense a flicker of doubt cross her mind. “Probably? Maybe.”

“Give them the signal. If we ever needed a distraction, now is the time.”

“Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on… uh… fuck I’m running out of names… Adana? Was that a singer?”

You close your eyes, take a deep breath. “Just… send the signal, Anima.”

While she talks into her radio you shift your focus to prying the case of the server open. Taking the whole thing isn’t practical, all you really need is the shiny hard drive core. It pains you, to bust a perfectly decent computer like this but there’s no point in being gentle. You brace the case on the rack and pry at the seam with your fingers until it pops open in your hands like a cracked clam, little bits of broken plastic flying into space. Just another deed to add to your list of crimes.

“Hey, uh… Avril?”

The nervous energy Anima’s putting out makes you tense up. “What?”

“I’m not reaching anyone down here.”

“Come again?” It only takes a good tug to pop the hard drive free of the bay. No screws, thank god.

“I don’t think the radio can reach from down here.”

“Of course it can’t on it’s own, you need a relay to bounce the signal outside… You _just_ said you could do it.” You keep your hands steady as gently place the hard disk into a reinforced container clipped to your belt.

“I said, I thought I could.” She waves the radio around in her hands. “I’m not the techie here, that’s your job!”

“I assumed you would knew your own equipment!”

She crosses her arms, points the hand holding the radio at you. “Well, that’s hardly my fault, now is it?”

“Yes it is!” You press your hands to your head. “Okay. Okay. _Okay_.” Deep breaths. Stay focused. Stay in control. “Well, we have _a_ hard drive. Who knows what’s on it. At least that’s… something. Let’s just get out of he– What are you doing?”

While you were having your moment Anima had clipped her radio back to her belt and walked over to the nearest tray of servers and with a grunt she, tips the shelving unit, sending them all toppling to the floor. “Covering our tracks.” She moves to the next row and tips that over too. “Now, you got an escape plan?”

You close your eyes, reach out and get a sense of all the little minds scurrying around, plot them to your mental map. “How do you feel about service elevator shafts? They aren’t as guarded.”

“What about these?” You open your eyes to find Anima pointing to a grate in the ceiling.

“The air vent?” You try to remember where those were on the map. “I didn’t consider– It’s a little cramped in those, isn’t it?”

“See,” Anima is already shifting a tray of servers to bring her in jumping distance of the vent. “This is why I’m here. We can just use this and bypass the party at the stairwell.” You pick up an image of the building schematics, from her. Slightly different from your own, higher resolution. 

“…I hate tiny spaces.”

Anima jumps and her fingers catch the edge of the metal, and for a split second the grate holds her hanging from the ceiling before it gives out and Anima falls down, a brief moment of panic leaking out before she hits the ground. “Shit!”

You jog over to her as she kicks the metal grate away from her.“You alright?” You ask, offering a hand up.

“Fucking– yeah, I’m fine. Fucking fine.” She pushes herself up, doesn’t take your hand. Fair enough. “You can climb, right?”

A brief memory of scaling bridge struts flashes through your mind and you suppress a shudder. “It’s been known to happen.”

“Well, it’s happening today, come on.”

Crawling through the vents is every bit as terrible as you imagined it would be. Still, you have to admit, Anima was right, it lets you get out without a fight. That’s a -begrudging- plus in your book. Once outside again, the two of you put some distance between you and the sound of the incoming police cars. Stopping to take catch your breath after a couple of blocks.

Anima takes the chance to climb the stone wall fencing off an old church and perching on top. She swings her legs against the edge of the stone, suit scuffed and dirtied. “That was a fucking disaster.” In the far distance the two of you can see the red and blue flashing lights of police cars bouncing off windows.

“If you hadn’t spent the whole time trying to mess with me, then maybe, _maybe_ we could have gotten the correct files.” You clench your hands into fists as you look up at her. “I’ll let you know what I find on the disk we did steal, but don’t hold your breath.”

She waves a hand at you dismissively. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so easily messible, Themis Themyscira of whatever. We’re supposed to be villains. You’re like, fucking Radio-Free Casper over there.” 

“Anima, not once in this whole night have you even bothered to call me by my proper name.”

“Yeah well,” Anima turns her head, looking away from you. “Same goes for you too.”

What?

“I’ve called you Anima the whole time.”

“Not my name.”

You frown at that, pull up your mask so she can properly see you, you Ariadne, not Adrestia, glaring at her. “What are– what are you talking about?”

“Anima isn’t my name.”

Where’s she going with this? Is she just fucking with you again? “That– that’s the name my contact used to, uh, get me in touch with you.”

“Yeah, well, they must have been an amazing and incredibly attractive liar.”

You sigh, rub the bridge of your nose. Don’t even try to puzzle that one out. “Fine. I– I apologize?” As you say it you realize you actually mean it. You, more than anyone, ought to know how important a proper name is. “What’s your– your _actual_ name then?”

“I’m not telling you now.”

You stand there and wait her out, hands on your hips.

She huffs and pulls up her mask, and now it’s just Logan who looks down at you. But only for a beat before she focuses on some building in the distance. Logan takes out a pack of cigarettes and lighter from a pocket. It’s a whole process she deliberately drags out; fishing up a single cigarette, lighting it and putting it to her lips.

As Logan puts the pack and lighter back, she takes a long drag and then exhales a curling wisp of smoke.

“Sidestep.” She says.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘Oh’.”

You have to think about this one, slide the new information into place. Finally, you say: “You– you miss it too, huh.” It’s not a question.


End file.
